COOH-Terminal Analysis of Polypeptides by Chemical and Chromatographic Methods

Whereas the complete primary structure of a polypeptide may be established by mass spectrometry ( see chapters by Wittmann-Liebold and L’Italien in this volume), this cannot be achieved by Edman degradation because this stepwise procedure does not allow discrimination between polypeptides with free or blocked COOH-terminal carboxylic groups. This shortcoming of Edman degradation must not be ignored in view of the significant biologic role of COOH-terminal modifications, especially for many regulatory pep-tides ( 1 , 2 ). Thus, whenever Edman degradation is used as the prinicpal method of complete amino acid sequence determination, it must be supplemented by COOH-terminal analysis. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.